Sunday, July 25, 2004

• Update.

    But just a small one.  I updated the Literarium.  Things have been quite boring lately.  I won't get interested in politics until some time in late August and nothing interesting happens outside the debates anyway.  As for Sandy Berger "accidently" stuffing classified documents into his socks (known as shoplifting in most places), there's only one thing you can do when confronted with a story like his: drink.

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Sunday, June 06, 2004

Update.

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Tuesday, May 25, 2004

So . . .

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Sunday, May 16, 2004

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

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Saturday, May 15, 2004

The Vatican warned Catholic women on Friday to think hard before marrying a Muslim and urged Muslims to show more respect for human rights, gender equality and democracy.

Calling women "the least protected member of the Muslim family," it spoke of the "bitter experience" western Catholics had with Muslim husbands, especially if they married outside the Islamic world and later moved to his country of origin.

The comments in a document about migrants around the world were preceded by remarks about points of agreement between Christians and Muslims but they seemed likely to fuel mistrust between the world's two largest religions.

The document said the Church discouraged marriages between believers in traditionally Catholic countries and non-Christian migrants.

It hoped Muslims would show "a growing awareness that fundamental liberties, the inviolable rights of the person, the equal dignity of man and woman, the democratic principle of government and the healthy lay character of the state are principles that cannot be surrendered."

When a Catholic woman and Muslim man wanted to marry, it said, "bitter experience teaches us that a particularly careful and in-depth preparation is called for."

It said one possible problem was with Muslim in-laws and advised future mothers that they must insist on Church policy that children born of a mixed marriage be baptized and brought up as Catholics.

If the marriage is registered in the consulate of a Muslim country, the document said, the Catholic must be careful not to sign a document or swear an oath including the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, which would amount to converting.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES

The document highlighted the contrasting approaches the Vatican has taken in recent years toward Islam, which has emerged as a strong rival for souls, especially in Africa.

Pope John Paul has broken ground in dialogue with Muslims and even prayed in a mosque in Damascus. He won plaudits in the Muslim world for his strong opposition to the Iraq war.

But Vatican officials and leading Catholic prelates have expressed increasingly critical views about the spread of Islam and the challenge this poses for Catholicism.

The Vatican's top theologian, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, said earlier this week the West "no longer loves itself" and so was unable to respond to the challenge of Islam, which was growing because it expressed "greater spiritual energy."

The migration document also discouraged churches from letting non-Christians use their places of worship.

This issue arose last month when Muslims in Spain asked to be able to pray in Cordoba cathedral, which was once a mosque. A senior Vatican official said this would be "problematic."

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Wednesday, May 12, 2004

EURABIA, CONT’D.

In a disquieting essay at Catholic Exchange, Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes takes a page from Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who warns in her newest book, La Forza della Ragione ("The Force of Reason"), that "Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam." Pipes agrees: "Christianity’s ancient stronghold of Europe is rapidly giving way to Islam."

Is it inevitable, Sharia law supreme from the Urals to the Atlantic? Pipes implies as much:

"Current trends suggest Islamization will happen, for Europeans seem to find it too strenuous to have children, stop illegal immigration, or even diversify their sources of immigrants. Instead, they prefer to settle unhappily into civilizational senility."

Better book your flights to catch a last glimpse of "Museum Europe"--the Arab world is indifferent to its own antiquities and likely would be more lax as "guardians" of the European cultural heritage.

But, then, if the Euros don't care, why should the Arabs?


posted by Robert Bove on Wednesday, May 12, 2004 | link

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Friday, May 07, 2004

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